Employers Must Make Reasonable Religious Accommodations

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act says an employer that fails or refuses to hire or to discharges any individual, or otherwise to discriminates against any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges [of] employment, because of such individual’s religion is in violation of the law. For many years, employers were not treated as being discriminatory if they could show “more than a de minimis cost” to provide a religious accommodation; it was treated as an undue hardship. A new case from the U.S. Supreme Court held that Title VII requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial (not merely de minimis) increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business to avoid being discriminatory. #IdeaoftheDay